Hi! I’m Raj, the lady behind the blog. Pink Chai Living is diary of my pursuits in preserving Punjabi recipes, and celebrating the culture. It’s a peek into my life as a first-generation Canadian Punjabi mom, business owner, and wanderluster. I travel to experience new cultures and of course to learn about food history and techniques from around the world.
When I’m not in the kitchen testing recipes, I work as Creative Director at Pink Chai Media – a multicultural marketing agency that I founded at my kitchen table nearly 10 years ago. My professional work focuses on creating culturally appropriate marketing for the South Asian consumer, and advocating for fair representation and pay for our community of content creators.
And when I get a break from all the hats I wear, I read. For as long as I can remember, I’ve read anything and everything I can get my hands on. Classics, romance novels, autobiographies, cookbooks, and even encyclopedias when I was in the fifth grade. As food is for my stomach, reading is for my soul.
I hope you’ll stick around for a bit and read about one of my adventures, try a recipe, or simply read about the joys of motherhood. You are always welcome in my little corner of the internet – jee ayan nu.
Okay, but why Pink Chai?
Everyone always wants to know how this page of mine (and my company) ended up with the name Pink Chai. I wish it was an exciting or insightful story but here’s how it goes. Pink is and has always been my favourite colour. So when I first started my ‘web blog’ nearly 13 years ago and was stuck on what to name it, I called up my friend Laurie and said to her “I really want my blog name to have the pink in it, and then some word that represents my cultural background but everyone gets – something like chai.” Laurie said – why not name it Pink Chai? And the rest as they say is history.
These days, I like to think that Pink represents the heart-centric nature of my work, and Chai is sort of synonym for the cultures I represent under the umbrella of South Asian marketing.